Georgia state lawmaker defends allegation white man told her to ‘go back’

An African American state lawmaker in Georgia is calling on police to charge a white man she says told her to “go back where you came from” during a verbal fight at a local supermarket.

Rep. Erica Thomas (D) held a press conference on the matter Monday after a video in which she shared her experience went viral.

“I started to tear up. I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed, and I was scared for my life,” Thomas said at the conference, according to a WSB-TV report.{mosads}

The man, Eric Sparkes, denies he told her to “go back,” but in an interview with the local station, alongside Thomas, he admitted to cursing at her. 

The situation occurred after Thomas, who is pregnant, was in an express checkout lane with more than than the maximum number of items.

“I called you a lazy piece of shit. That’s the worst thing I said,” Sparkes said in the interview, shared by Thomas on Twitter. 

“That’s all you said to me?” Thomas responded. 

“Yes,” Sparkes said. 

“OK, because that makes you look better because everybody is after you now,” she said. 

In a Facebook post he again defended himself claiming Thomas was the aggressor in the situation. 

“Ms. Thomas unfortunately doesn’t want to take any responsibility for her aggressive behavior in front of her own daughter by taking confrontational steps towards me inside Publix after only wanting to point out she she was in the express with too many items. I’ve taken responsibility for using a foul word. The foul word would have never occurred if Ms. Thomas had not initiated aggression,” Sparkes wrote.

“You sounds like a coward to me and that’s fine you will think twice before you berate any one again! You keep lying we have witnesses that will testify!” Thomas tweeted.

So Eric Sparkes admits to approaching me and verbally assulting me in front of my 9 year and but not the rest of his statements. You sounds like a coward to me and that’s fine you will think twice before you berate any one again!You keep lying we have witnesses that will testify! pic.twitter.com/HRWTBZ89SC

— Erica Thomas (@itsericathomas) July 21, 2019

The local station reported Thomas, the minority vice chairwoman of the Georgia state House, was in the “15 items or fewer” line at the Atlanta-area Publix. 

Thomas, in a tearful video recounting the situation, said she was in the line with more items than permitted by the sign because she’s “nine months pregnant and can’t stand up for long.” 

“And this white man comes up to me and says, ‘You lazy son of a bitch.’ He says, ‘You lazy son of a bitch. You need to go back where you came from,'” Thomas said in the video, which was widely shared on social media. 

The hashtag #IStandWithErica trended on Twitter after Thomas shared her allegations of the racist attack last week. 

It followed days of backlash about similar comments President Trump made against four freshmen Democratic congresswomen. 

Trump targeted Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) in a tweet telling them to “go back” to where they came from. 

All four are women of color. Only Omar was born outside of the U.S.  

Trump has defended the comments.